Iowa's northern and western borders

(or, "The Land
Between Three Rivers and a Funky Diagonal")

When Florida became a state on March 3, 1845, it created an
imbalance
between free and slave states in the Union. Since about the beginning
of the 19th century, free and slave states were admitted to the Union
in pairs, the most notable pair being Maine and Missouri in the
Missouri Compromise. Michigan and Arkansas followed about 15 years
later, and eight years after that it was time for a new round. With
Florida's admission, Iowa was the next candidate for statehood.

At the time, Iowa Territory extended all the way up to the
British
Empire, in what today are Manitoba and Saskatchewan, bordered on the
west by the Missouri River and the east by the Mississippi River. It
included eastern South Dakota, three-fourths of North Dakota, and more
than half of Minnesota. But as with most territories, the final
boundaries for a state would be pared down from the original territory.

Many sources put a diagonal in the first state border
proposal made in 1845. A line would extend from the mouth of the Big
Sioux River at present-day Sioux City to the mouth of the Blue Earth
River just west of present-day Mankato. From there, the Minnesota River
would be the border up to the Mississippi River, and then the
Mississippi would be the state's eastern border. (Hence, the subtitle
above.) In the following discussion
about the borders, I will often refer to present-day sites and
highways, to provide a sense of location. Keep in mind, though, that
had either of these borders been accepted, the history of those cities
and highways would be very different. Maybe they wouldn't exist at all.

Full version of the
northern boundary here.
Interstates in Minnesota that would be in "Iowa" are also on this map.

This graphic shows how the diagonal would have cut off Iowa's
northwestern corner. Black dots are in the proposed state of Iowa, gray
dots out. The line seems to go almost directly over the southwestern
and northeastern corners of O'Brien County, which would put half the
town of Primghar inside Iowa and half outside it. (In addition, today's
Sioux City would likely have a really skewed street grid.) The line
would also go right through West Okoboji Lake and near today's west
junction of US
71 and IA 9. In retrospect, though this portion of Iowa was virtually
unsettled by whites at the time, such a line would cut off some very
productive farmland.

Prominent
dissent: Author Mark Stein includes no mention of this
diagonal proposal. Instead, he says that Territorial Governor Robert
Lucas proposed borders that would include ALL of Minnesota south of the
Minnesota River plus that portion of what is now South Dakota east of
the Big Sioux River to its source with a line east to somewhere
northwest of Big Stone City, SD. (Geographic quirk: The Big Sioux flows
south through western Sioux Falls then turns back north to I-90 before
going east and south again - that would make for a weird border dip!)
This would have given the state a big lobe to the northwest plus,
again, the southern half of what is now the Minneapolis-St. Paul metro
area.

Congress rejected the first proposal, whatever it was -
perhaps because of the diagonal when the township-and-range system was
well-established, but that's only my speculation. It sent back a new
one - one that chopped off about a third of the present state.
Sources agree that the western border was not the Missouri River, and
that the proposal went north into present-day Minnesota, but beyond
that, there are discrepancies that vary enough to be completely
confusing. Descriptions I have seen:

"two counties into Minnesota and no farther west than Des
Moines" (1)

"60 miles east of the Missouri River and slightly north of
the current Minnesota border" (2). Depending on where you measure from,
this could be a short distance west of modern-day IA 148 or the same
line mentioned below.

"The western boundary was to be
essentially a northern continuation of Missouri's western boundary (the
meridian passing through the mouth of the Kansas River).
Iowa's northern boundary was to be the line of latitude passing through
the confluence of the Minnesota and Blue Earth rivers." (3) This line
marked Missouri's entire western border until 1837, when the northwest
corner was officially added to the state, and in Iowa it passes just to
the east of IA 4's route between Emmetsburg and IA 175; IA 25 would be
entirely east of this line. This line would make sense along the idea
that Iowa should be no narrower than Missouri. A geographic
problem with this description is that a whole-number line of latitude
does not pass through the river point. However, 44 degrees 10 minutes
is remarkably close, so that may be the intended line.

"Congress presented for the approval of the people of the
Territory a new western boundary which passed from north to south on a
line about forty miles west of Des Moines. The northern boundary was on
a line with the juncture of the Blue Earth and St. Peter's [Minnesota]
Rivers, in Minnesota." (4) But then this description seems to
contradict itself: "Had Congress prevailed, Iowa to-day would be but
little more than half as wide from east to west as it is, and would
extend thirty miles farther north, into Minnesota." A line 40 miles
west of Des Moines (the confluence of the Raccoon and Des Moines
rivers) would be somewhere in the vicinity of Panora - practically
right on top of IA 4 in that area. It's about two-thirds, not half, as
wide as the current state, even when measured from the Burlington area.
Des Moines itself is west of the state's vertical center line. Not only
that, but the Blue Earth's mouth is about 42 miles north of the
present-day northern border, not 30, and 44° N is 34.5 miles
north.

94 degress West longitude and a line passing through the
confluence of the Minnesota and Blue Earth Rivers. (5) An undetailed
map of this plan, created for an Iowa Public Television documentary,
puts the west and east forks of the Des Moines River just to the west
of this line, southeast of present-day Humboldt. But it also has a
problem: It places the Blue Earth's mouth to the east of the
94-degree line. In
reality, the mouth is about 1.6 miles west of this
line. The point of 43°10' N and 94° W is the
intersection of Main and Broad in downtown Mankato - between 1000 and
2500 feet away
from the Minnesota River.

The extension of the former Missouri border as mentioned in
the
third bullet point (despite the fact that it had stopped being
Missouri's western border north of Kansas City nearly a decade earlier)
and a line NORTH of the Minnesota/Mississippi confluence that could
quite possibly be 45° N. (6) Today, this line of latitude is
approximately a mile and a half south of the MN 36 expressway through
the suburb of Roseville and on Broadway Street in Minneapolis. Downtown
Minneapolis is about three miles south of this line.

This map
draws out the options as best I understand them, with the exclusion of
the last one. A north-south red line
labeled "'Platte Purchase' line extension," the farthest west, is the
continuation of the
"meridian passing through the mouth of the Kansas River"; a second red
line is 94° W. A vertical pink line marks the middle option,
and a horizontal pink line shows 44° N. IA 4, US 14 and 169 are
drawn in, as well as I-90, to help
illustrate where the state lines would be. Kossuth County's
eastern border and a line of four counties in
southern Iowa - right by the easternmost line on either side - are also
drawn for illustration. Coincidentally (or not), 94° W is also
at or near
the dividing line between "P" and "R" county roads.

Given these lines, I think either the Platte Purchase
extension or 94° W would have been the line in question. Trying
to negotiate the latter border
after the actual paths of the rivers were found, though, would be
awkward to say the least. Putting a tri-state corner so near but not at
a river, with one state shut out of the riverfront, probably would not
be a good situation for commerce and development. A shift west of even
one minute, to 94°1' W, would solve this problem and give
"Iowa" a
small piece of the Minnesota River riverfront, while 94°3'
would put the Blue Earth's mouth in the state. Had either plan been
implemented, neither Burlington (the original territorial capital) nor
Iowa City (the second territorial capital) would have been centered in
the state; perhaps consideration would have been given to the town of
Prairie Rapids, which would later change its name to Waterloo.

Regardless of where the proposed border was actually drawn,
when confronted with this too-much-off-the-back state outline,
Iowans said, "Adopt that? In a pig's eye!" (This is a Minnesota joke:
Around the time Iowa's statehood was being planned, a village was
founded on the Mississippi River across from what would have become
Iowa under the first plan. This village was called Pig's Eye, and is
better known today as St. Paul.) It was back to the drawing board
again, and this time, taking 43°30' N as the northern border
for the entire way from the Mississippi to the Big Sioux was judged as
acceptable. The south line remained in dispute for a few more years -
for that, see my page on the Sullivan
Line.

The Minnesota Historical Society, unfortunately, gets its
facts wrong in more places than one.

This map is on a 1992 marker at the US 59/MN 60 Minnesota
Welcome
Center, about four miles north of the state line. The relevant text on
the marker says: "When Iowa prepared to join the union in 1844, its
constitutional convention voted to set the new state's northern
boundary along the line [45° N] shown above, including the
confluence of the Minnesota and Mississippi rivers. ... Iowa's northern
border was [later] fixed on the latitude of 43.30, and when Iowa became
a state on August 4, 1846, the future state of Minnesota's southern
boundary was set even before the Minnesota Territory was organized."

The only other place that I have seen 45°
considered as a line for Iowa's northern border is in Stein's book, and
even there it's not explicity labeled as such. If 45°
had been considered, it
would have been very early in the process, possibly in 1844 as
mentioned on the marker; otherwise, only southeastern Minnesota was
even under consideration. But I DO
know that that statehood date is flat out
wrong; Iowa became a state on December 28, 1846.

Sources:
(1) Irwin, Ann and Reida, Bernice. Hawkeye
Adventure. Lake Mills, IA: Graphic Publishing Co.
Inc., 1966/1975, p. 202-3. This happened to be my sixth-grade Iowa
History book.
(2) Iowa Public Television, "Iowa
Pathways: The Path to Statehood." Accessed May 20,
2007.
(3) Wikipedia
version of "Iowa" as posted on answers.com. Accessed May 20,
2007. In turn, that webpage cites Meining, D.W. The Shaping of America: A
Geographical Perspective on 500 Years of History, Volume 2:
Continental America, 1800-1867. New Haven, CT: Yale
University
Press, 1993, p. 437-8. This information (as of May 2007) is not on the "Iowa"
page on Wikipedia itself (and had a book not been cited, it would not
have been listed here).
(4) Sabin, Henry and Sabin, Edwin. The
Making of Iowa (Chapter
3: The Birth of a State). Chicago, IL: A. Flanagan Co., 1900,
republished online by the Iowa GenWeb Project.
(5) Iowa Public Television, "Iowa
Pathways: The Path to Statehood: Western Boundary Debate."
Same site as source #2, but with a visual aid: A segment of "The Path
to Statehood," The Iowa Heritage: Program #3, Iowa Public Television,
1978. (RealPlayer) The fact that the same website has two different
border markings shows the confusion here.
(6) Stein, Mark. How
the States Got Their Shapes.
New York, NY: HarperCollins Publishers, 2008, p. 95-100. (Stein
discusses the southern border without using the words "Honey War."
What's up with that?)